CHARACTERIZATION OF SEMIVEGETATED SALT-AFFECTED SOILS BY MEANS OF FIELD REMOTE-SENSING

Many recent attempts to map soils and related ecological phenomena are concerned with spatial patterns. There is a large diversity of approaches to determine 1) the actual parameters to be measured, 2) the most informative categories to be formed based on them, and depending on both of the above, 3) the sampling locations and 4) the resolution of the map. This paper reports a field remote sensing project to meet the requirements of a detailed botanical and soils survey to understand salinity status of the Hortobagy region in east Hungary. The problem of association-level recognition of land cover is addressed in terms of quantitative description and ground resolution. It is concluded that the most characteristic six to seven vegetation association types are well identifiable based on their TM spectra using discriminant analysis / nonhierarchical clustering with half-meter ground resolution.